A common dilemma or debate is whether we should spend more money and save on our time (e.g., pay the maid to clean our house instead of cleaning it ourselves), or should we save the money and spend more time (walking 20 minutes to the grocery store instead of using the car). Obviously, there are additional attributes that can be gained/lost by deciding on either course of action. My life belief is that while money can come and go, time isn’t. You might have 10,000 dollars in your bank account, but you will have a finite 525,600 minutes per year and can expect to have on average 31.5 million minutes in your entire adult life (counting from your early 20’s to your early 80s). That might sound like a lot of time, but it aint. By the time you finish my post, you’ve lost another 5 minutes of your life. Oh.

This case of Time vs. Money helps me focus on what’s important and to manage my day-to-day tasks, what can be delegated to other service taker and what I should do myself. Recently, I have “bumped” into this argument from a different angle entirely. Read on!

Like this:

Since 2009, @Whatsapp has evolved from a simple person to person instant text messaging service into a 1.3 Billion users community worldwide which were using the app anywhere from asking your friend for her recipe to companies internal notification media platform. And the penetration of the app is expected to evolve and expand to personal customer services and in the not-too far future of the Internet of Things (IoT), people will communicate with their home devices, such as timing the washing machine to complete its run 5 minutes before you come home from work (thanks to integration with Waze traffic and drive time algorithm). The machines can send updates back on their progress, any malfunctions that suddenly occur (and that will be sent to the warranty supplier instantaneous). Until these exciting IoT integrations will take place, you can use whatsapp to increase your productivity. Read on.

The bad news: life in the digital era can be a major time consumer with little benefits gained at the end of the day.

The good news: it’s at the hand of every person to manage his/her “time leaks” to balance effectiveness with spontaneous.

Here’s a gist of the modern human:

News alerts, emails from the boss, wife texts you on Whatsapp what do about your kid’s horrendous facebook feed, 10 LinkedIn requests awaiting your approval and the digital suction goes on and on 24/7.

With all this going on in the background, you have to meet deadlines, budgets, solve technical issues on a new project, and around 250 unread emails, half is spam and the other half is from people awaiting your actions and decisions. And your boss expects the company’s future pipeline draft by the end of the week, and it better be smart and dripping of novelty.

Is that a knock on the door or is it your exploding brain trying to crack your skull? Do you feel suffocated by the “lack” of time?

When I first sat behind the helm of the R&D management, I had a lot on my mind and on my hands.

And the clock was ticking.

When the R&D team was composed of only myself, I had to be both efficient and very specific with my prioritization. A lab had to be secured, equipped, personnel brought in, regulations set and implemented, and not least important, setting the research goal, scope and stage for the practical stage. To keep myself focused on current tasks and keep the target’s ahead within sight I had used several software products and working methodologies.

Couple of days ago, I have stumbled over The New York Times blog Lens post that reminded me of my own recent experience as a documentary photographer.

The post dealt with the 3rd place winner of the Pictures of The Year competition, Damon Winter, which snapped the winning image via iPhone’s Hipstamatic app. According to the Lens (and the post author DAMON WINTER) “Critics have pounced. The debate over the propriety of using apps, already hot, is intensifying”. Personally, I feel Damon is damn right and it doesn’t matter which tool was used for capturing the moment as long as it conveys the autherntic atmosphere, moment, happening and such that matters. Now, how’s this relate to me?

Like this:

Been a long time since I have written my previous post and for two good reasons.
One, I have got my final thesis approval and will be submitting it in two days.
Second, in the past two weeks I have started working for a biotech startup which keep me busy pretty good.
🙂

So, 2014 started for me with ending one chapter in life, and starting another…hope to keep you posted on whatever I can share.

Like this:

One of the major fears that stalk every life scientist along his/her career is research/publication scooping. This fear drives many scientists and students to paranoia behavior, limiting discussion with other colleagues (even in the same lab) and presentation of solely published work at conferences, all for the fear of scooping. Will the life scientists eventually follow the path of Mathematics, Astronomy and other accurate sciences widely using various preprints servers? It might happen, though it will require a revolutionary concept, such as suggested below. Keep on reading…